What is digital journalism? The phrase appears self-explanatory considering “digital” and “journalism” are two relatively mundane terms with fairly straightforward meanings. However, while many would believe digital journalism merely encompasses online news sources and social media sites, it actually amalgamates far more.
Digital journalism is not just about the platform a certain type of news is on, it is also about how the news was gathered, what digital tools and technology elevate the story, and how citizens can actively engage with the media. Born from our modern world, digital journalism merges the innovation and accessibility of technology with the courageous work and voices of journalists.
However, like all technological advances, even digital journalism has its flaws. The internet has created a space where individuals want news quickly, concisely, and usually, for free. Meaning journalists have been forced into the ethical dilemma of commodifying news to keep themselves–and their families–afloat. Not to mention, the digital platform has bred distrust between citizens and news media outlets.
But should digital journalism itself be labeled bad–or even good? And even if it is one or the other, the fact of the matter is, digital journalism is a part of the world now–and it is not going away anytime soon. So it is worth looking at the advantages and disadvantages of this new media landscape.
The Advantages
Accessibility. One of the greatest things born from technological advances was the sudden interest in adaptability. With ever-changing technology came new ways to tell journalistic stories, and subsequently, more opportunities to make the news accessible to people with disabilities. Nowadays, multiple major news outlets have an accessibility page that outlines how users can increase font sizes, get closed captioning on videos, and even have the text be read aloud to them. Accessibility has become a staple of the online world and digital journalism is making sure the news is accessible to all kinds of consumers by making their journalism more adaptable.
Innovation. Hand-in-hand with these accessibility measures has been other innovations with digital journalism, including interactive news stories. From tracking the loss of animal life from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the myriad coronavirus maps outlining cases and deaths by county to The Washington Post’s award-winning timeline of the 1968 riots, digital journalism’s use of interactive storytelling has opened the world to a plethora of storytelling methods. Wheres many older news stories were focused on “what” story to tell, digital journalism has added an important question to the conversation: “how” should that story be told?
Citizen Responsibility. But it is not just journalists who benefit from the ease-of-access that digital journalism brings. Bringing journalism into the virtual space also gave regular citizens the ability to utilize it. Citizen journalism has exploded in popularity since the invention of the smartphone and the popularization of social media websites. Now, the people are holding their social structures accountable (a job usually reserved for journalists) and delivering their own news through posts, blogs, pictures, and videos. And while some may be concerned with the prospect of citizens, who do not share the same education or bias training as professional journalists, using digital journalism, it is actually necessary for a healthy democracy. Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel explain in their book The Elements of Journalism, citizens have rights and responsibilities when it comes to news. Their input on the news, even when flawed, keeps the industry accountable and more in tune with the needs of the general public.
The Disadvantages
Commodification. Although digital journalism has increased the scope of how to get ahold of the news, the idea of a “free” internet means the public is much less willing to pay for it. Paying for the news used to be an expected and universally understood phenomenon with physical newspapers, but when it digitized, consumers became reluctant to pay. And while journalism is a public service in the sense it literally serves the public, revenue is still necessary to keep journalism running. And digital journalism has had to find revenue sources by commodifying the news. The introduction of paywalls, the use of native advertising, and digital ad campaigns have made the news a more profitable practice–for better or for worse.
Accessibility (cont.). Unsurprisingly, the commodification of the news has lead to limited accessibility. And while, as previously stated, accessibility on the front of disability rights has been improved via digital journalism, accessibility when it comes to wealth distribution has become much worse. Along with the necessity of owning a computer and having access to the internet, digital journalism requires a level of “non-essential funds” not all people are privy to. With the introduction of paywalls comes the understanding not everyone will have access to the same quality of news. And while many news sources believe in keeping their coverage free, like The Guardian, the best innovations and ability to give the best coverage come from the news sources with the most resources.
Faith in the Media. And maybe this has been one of the many reasons people have started grappling towards Facebook and other social media websites for their news–not because people necessarily prefer it, but because it is free. But this insurgence of news gathering from social media has bred distrust between the public and news media organizations. Even before the misinformation wave during the 2016 election, the internet was a place where trustworthy information was often hard to properly verify. Which has led many political voices from all sides of the spectrum to attack the media, generalizing practices and using the very tools which defined digital technology against journalists. Whereas physical newspapers were often heralded as beacons of truth, digital journalism has to defend its credibility against every other questionable website and pop-up ad haven that exists.
So the question remains–is digital journalism a bad thing? Is it a good thing? Or is it just another side effect of progress that we are now faced with and had better start getting used to?
The answer, though complicated, does not matter as much as how citizens decide to utilize and respect digital journalism. One thing that has spurned from the digital age is the public’s access to resources to keep authority accountable–including journalists and news media outlets. Activists were outraged when the Washington Post refused to report on Jeff Bezos’s wealth and when Bloomberg failed to cover Michael Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk statistics. With digital journalism, people are paying attention. So whatever the future holds for the digital journalism landscape, the citizens will be the ones to make sure it is for the better.
Brenna Fuhr 